I have to admit that I was a little worried by the fact that Kili gets so much screen time in AUJ. He is nice to look at and all, but why did they need to show him beside Thorin in almost every scene? (Hopefully the relatively lack of Fili screen time is due to last-minute actor change, but we will have to see)

So, I did a bit of research, and found that Peter Jackson saw Aidan Turner in Being Human and wanted him for the role. I was curious.

So naturally I watched Being Human... and I was completely blown away by how convincing Aidan was in his role. I thought Kili was just there to be pretty, but once I realized what Aidan could do, it gave me a new perspective.

Obviously, PJ is going to do something with Kili's role -- and perhaps a lot of something. If he was just there simply to be funny, be cool and slightly heroic and die tragically, then it would be such a waste of talent.

However, this gave me a new concern. It's Bilbo's story after all! Putting attention on the Dwarves and turning Thorin into a tragic hero is one thing, as he's the main Dwarf. But now Kili too?

Not that I'm complaining -- if anything, I'm intrigued. But I can't help but feel that it is going to be a tricky balance to keep.

Bilbo is, indeed the central character in the book... but in the book, most of the characters are not much more than nice rhyming names on a list. I'm excited about the films because we've already had many of these characters fleshed out very nicely... both in design and characterization.

My first thoughts on seeing Thorin, Fili and Kili was... "those do not look like the Dwarves my Elves played D&D with all those years..."

I now have the WETA book and you can see the progression from the first character designs (stereotypes created by... ummm... the Hobbit and all things Tolkien) to what we see on screen (freakin' brilliant!). We have characters all ages of the audience can relate to. We have characters that are getting the attention of the teen and twenty-something fangirls who may turn from vapid sparkly vampires to some Real Literature.

All of which is to say Aidan Turner could have been just another pretty face (like those sparkly boys). And that would have made me yawwwwwwwwn. I'm old enough to be his (Dwarven) mother, and I found him appealing because he projects something far more than pretty.

Yeah, what is that? Ummmmmm... he's (Kili) completely unaware that he's pretty. He's like an enthusiastic Siberian husky pup who should be running 1000 miles, only he's just bounced into Bag End and is tracking mud all over, and throwing things on the floor and chewing things up and leaving dustbunnies the size of Smaug in his wake. He's skilled but untested. He often has a look that says, "What, I did that?!?" He's hilarious. He's completely lovable.

I am glad PJ decided to do three films, not only does it match LOTR, but we have more time to develop these characters (and I suspect others will have more moments later)... more time to fall in love with all of them... and in the end we will care far more than we did in the book when they were just nice rhyming names on a list. Go outside and play...

I completely agree. For what it's worth, I'm also outside the teen/twenties demographic, and when I saw the first pictures of the dwarves I thought that Kili was far too pretty to be a dwarf. Well, Fili is rather easy on the eye, too, but to me he didn't look like the obvious 'pretty boy' as he has a quirkier look. Kili, on the other hand, looked just like that - a pretty boy to catch the teenage demographic. So I was a little apprehensive about what he would be like in the movie.

And I was very pleasantly surprised. He still is pretty to look at, but he doesn't act 'pretty'. He isn't very self-aware, I think. He just does whatever pops into his head and often surprises himself in the process. I really like the analogy of the Husky puppy - well, I haven't owned a Husky myself, but I've had a few other puppies in my time, and they have all acted very much like that. They come running in, all eager to please and excited about their big adventure. They wreak havoc on occasion and get into all sorts of mischief, but they also learn and seek approbation. Kili really wants to please Thorin, most of all, and I like the interactions between these two. There still is a lot of room for character development on Kili's part, and I hope that we get to see that.

i would have been more than happy with the way the dwarves worked out of they had just had proper dwarf beards!!!!!

kili looks more like an elf compared to gimli. balin is perfect. my favourite newest character. they should have gone with a cast of dwarves all that caliber. snowwhite and the huntsman managed to get some excellent actors for the dwarves. bill bailey and johhny vegas where are they?

for me in the book the company of dwarves had an air of mystery about them, like all the dwarves do in tolkiens stories.

any way, with all the other story arcs happening at the same time, i think we may lose out on the hobbits point of view if were not carefull. "You Tolkien to me?!" - Hobbit de Niro

Kili's got all the bouncy enthusiasm of Tigger, or, as swordwhale so nicely put it, a Husky pup. We're going to love him by the end (if we don't already!), and his character arc is going to be heartbreaking. I think Kili (and Fili too, most likely) will serve as a nice foil to Thorin when Thorin has his eventual meltdown. I suspect we're not going to completely lose our sympathy for Thorin -- even though RA says we're going to hate him! -- but the audience is likely to relate really well to Kili by then, when we're starting to want to give Thorin a kick up the proverbial backside. Kili may be feeling what the audience feels at that point: he and we all will still care deeply about Thorin, but will be wishing Thorin would come to his senses and snap out of the dragon-sickness. I actually think this may be fascinating: will Kili feel a serious internal conflict between his loyalty to Thorin and what he feels is the right thing to do by Bilbo and those who have a claim on the treasure? Is Kili going to be forced to grow up quickly -- just in time to be slain in battle?

I read an interview somewhere recently where RA said that he and Kili (he had been asked about Kili specifically, and did not mention Fili) have some intimate moments later on. And in another interview, RA said the original backstory was that Thorin didn't want to take his nephews on the quest because he didn't want to endanger them; this has been scrapped from AUJ, but apparently the idea will still resurface in either DOS or TABA.

Anyways, I think Kili is fantastic. He's bouncy, irrepressible, enthusiastic, eager to please, and just plain funny. What's not to love? Looks aren't really relevant (okay, they don't hurt, but still...). I'm thrilled that PJ has developed this character so much more fully than what we get in the book; and I can't wait to see how Kili develops and, I suspect, matures, over the next two movies.

I have to admit that I was a little worried by the fact that Kili gets so much screen time in AUJ. He is nice to look at and all, but why did they need to show him beside Thorin in almost every scene? (Hopefully the relatively lack of Fili screen time is due to last-minute actor change, but we will have to see)

So, I did a bit of research, and found that Peter Jackson saw Aidan Turner in Being Human and wanted him for the role. I was curious.

So naturally I watched Being Human... and I was completely blown away by how convincing Aidan was in his role. I thought Kili was just there to be pretty, but once I realized what Aidan could do, it gave me a new perspective.

Obviously, PJ is going to do something with Kili's role -- and perhaps a lot of something. If he was just there simply to be funny, be cool and slightly heroic and die tragically, then it would be such a waste of talent.

However, this gave me a new concern. It's Bilbo's story after all! Putting attention on the Dwarves and turning Thorin into a tragic hero is one thing, as he's the main Dwarf. But now Kili too?

Not that I'm complaining -- if anything, I'm intrigued. But I can't help but feel that it is going to be a tricky balance to keep.

I agreevery much with something Angharad said, and it's one of the things which I think helps make Kili interesting as a character, or at least a little different maybe from what might be expected and that is while he certainly has a certain amount of confidence, he really wasn't, in the first film anyway, what I'd call "cocky", he wasn't really a hotshot.

He was friendly and confident but also eager to please and sometimes seemed to almost be surprised when he did something and it worked. The double take he does at the sword when he manages to stop the Goblin arrows is great. Even when he was shooting at the orcs and wargs on the plains, it wasn't like he was showing off, it was like he just was really focused on doing what he had to do and took it very seriously. I think that helps make him likable, he's very capable, but he generally seems to be an inclusive, accepting sort of fellow.

As for screen time, I don't think it's a huge deal, screen time wise that he was standing next to Thorin alot. It isn't like he had a lot of lines. He also plays a somewhat unique role within the company, being the archer.

When it comes to "turning Kili tragic", well he is(and Fili too), I mean they die, defending the uncle who a short time before was sort of at the center of a whole heap of trouble because he wouldn't share any of the wealth(I know it's more complicated than that, and the blame doesn't lie entirely with Thorin, imo, but that discussion isn't for here really). So, leaving any other characters aside, he's young, he knew nothing of the world before this quest and he dies in battle(man PJ better not change that, that's a concern of mine) - he is a tragic figure. Tolkien may have almost entirely glossed over Kili and Fili's deaths with one throwaway sentence but there was no way that was going to fly in the film. So in that sense IMO Kili's role was always going to be expanded.

I wonder what Jackson had seen up to, on Being Human, when Turner got the call to audition? Had he seen Season 2 or only Season 1? AT found out he got the role while Season 3 was filming from the sounds of it, and that was months after the audition. Season 1's Mitchell was a somewhat lighter character, still with his dark side and complexities but not as heavy as it got in Season 2--with trying, and ultimately failing in a most spectacular and violent fashion, to control the chaos after the destruction of the previous "safeguards" which had kept the vampires and their killings under some semblance of control, and especially Season 3, dealing with the aftermath of all that which was just one long, terrible downward spiral. One of my favorite scenes is that confrontation with Lucy the final ep of Season 2, in that weird lab where they were trying to "cure" the werewolves, "we are all God's creatures, etc".

Anyway, that's off the topic, I just wonder which Peter had seen because it would be interesting to know what had impressed him, not that it would necessarily have anything to do with Kili's role - actors get seen in roles all the time where someone decides they'd be good for something even if it's entirely different. I think Season 1 Mitchell would have shown his ability with comedy, playing a friend, more personal sized stories while Season 2 could be said to show more about his character struggling with something larger than his just his own personal concerns.

Maybe it was just that he showed versatility by being able to play both light and dark,often in quick succession, showing someone struggling between two worlds, which would have given PJ some confidence that he'd be able to portray Kili with depth, even if was a totally different type of role.

I mean Ken Stott is clearly extremely talented but I have a feeling Balin is probably mainly going to be there as the kind hearted, mostly sensible, though still bad ass, advisor so I don't know that it would be a waste even if Kili was mainly meant to be a likable, sometimes humorous, brave young dwarf - the point is to portray whatever the character is very well and to give the portrayal, whatever it is, depth.

I do think there will probably be more to it, as you suggest, as we kind of have a hint from when it comes to the rumors about Tauriel, but I don't necessarily think it's going to be hugely different. I think, or hope anyway(anything but a Middle Earth Romeo and Juliet:)), it'll have more to do with the overall theme of good people of all cultures coming together to fight evil, and using those two characters to illustrate a small part of it, by in some way influencing each other's thinking, removing some of the prejudice, and perhaps in turn they will manage to influence their elder's thinking at some crucial moment.

Because he's going to die. They can't fully develop all the dwarves, so they're going to develop the ones that die for a bigger emotional impact. Currently, Kili's death would be sadder than say, Bifur, because we've gotten very little time to get to know Bifur.

My concern right now is that Fili ISN"T getting much screentime, and hopefully they fix that in DoS. He's important too! He's the one that's more book-accurate!

onto the character and his importance to the story. I don't see him getting a lot of extra attention in the film, except from fans :) He has some nice interaction with Bilbo, and since it's an ensemble film, they all hold each other up by simply being in the scene, even if they don't have lines. Reactions and throwing focus, not to mention the action sequences, all make up the character's 'presence' on screen. Aiden happens to have good screen presence, too.

It's sort of like when you buy a car, suddenly you see your car amongst everything else on the highway.

If PJ has done anything at all to Kili's credit, is that he gave him an identity and Aiden gave him a personality. For this we thank them. The same can be said for most of the other dwarves, to varying degrees.

Kili's personality is dwarven and he's the right size, who the heck cares how big his beard is? :) Though to be honest he looked quite good with a beard and a similar lack of heavy prosthetics, so I'm inclined to believe the lack of beard was mainly for differentiation, it's amazing how easy it is to confuse Turner and Armitage on first glance when they have similar amounts of hair, facial and hair-do--I don't know how many people I've seen say "Oh I mistook him for RA at first" when they see a clip of that VLOG where he has the beard and buzzcut during rehearsals at Bag End and oddly, they both somehow vaguely resemble Hugh Jackman(someone did one of those photomerge things, weird, esp RA's the photo barely changed at all LOL), yet they seem to look so different from each other. I'd never look at them and think they look at all alike and yet...under the right conditions, they somehow give off a similar impression.

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My concern right now is that Fili ISN"T getting much screentime, and hopefully they fix that in DoS. He's important too! He's the one that's more book-accurate!

Not really, in the book Fili was the youngest, which IMO is a more important change than color of hair and length of beard. The fact is they could have chosen either way to go, they could have gone by the ages in the book or the ages in the Appendix. They chose to go by the Appendix but that is still a change from the book whereas the appendix age is easy enough to excuse as Tolkien just plain forgetting what he wrote because he didn't care enough about Fili and Kili to differentiate(or write more than half a sentence about their deaths) and couldn't be bothered to look it up so he'd get the ages right.

In point of fact Fili's dialogue wasn't much less if you look at that chart someone did last week where they measured dialogue. Kili was listed only just above Fili and the difference was small. That belies the idea that the filmmakers are somehow short-changing the character because as I recall the difference was almost negligible. They were listed between two of the Stone Trolls, Kili had slightly less dialogue in the whole film as Tom the Troll and Fili slightly had more dialogue than William the Troll. Bofur and even Dwalin were significantly above them.

So I'm just not seeing this big unfair discrepancy between them. Maybe one just makes more of an impression than the other, it might be as simple as "stage presence".

Seriously, I can see there being at least some connection between the two characters. Not a full romance but at least some suggestion of a...strong friendship that will help ramp up both the tension between Elves and Dwarves (Legolas certainly wouldn't be happy about this friendship...) and make for some emotional scenes later on.

I almost feel that this HAS to happen, as well as the continuation of Gandalf and Galadriel's bond. One thing's for sure, nothing will feel as forced as Arwen's scenes in TTT and ROTK ('the life of the Eldar is leaving you...' ahem )

My friend just read the book after seeing the movie with me.
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She lost it when she got to the line about Fili/Kili in TBo5A. She called me freaking out. She said she read it and went "WTF!" (which was my own reaction back when I read it, but more because it seemed kind of throwaway and unnecessary, not because I was invested in hot dwarves like she is). She is convinced they cannot die in the movie. I explained to her how this would mess up the canon, cause book fans to riot, etc., but she can't believe PJ would create such nice, cute characters and have them iced. I asked her if she had ever seen a war movie, watched Old Yeller, but she's immovable.

So if she's any indication of the soon to be surprised moviegoers out there (think Ned in Game of Thrones), screaming will occur in the theaters.

Someone did a nifty cartoon in which young Kili is being laughed at by an assortment of Dwarves in his community for being "unDwarven" and funny looking. Loved the idea that while, to us humans (especially females) he is quite lovely... but to his fellow Dwarves he might be a bit wimpy looking.

Didn't get to see Aidan in that ... what was it with werewolves again???... but feel he is quite talented. Go outside and play...

She lost it when she got to the line about Fili/Kili in TBo5A. She called me freaking out. She said she read it and went "WTF!" (which was my own reaction back when I read it, but more because it seemed kind of throwaway and unnecessary, not because I was invested in hot dwarves like she is). She is convinced they cannot die in the movie. I explained to her how this would mess up the canon, cause book fans to riot, etc., but she can't believe PJ would create such nice, cute characters and have them iced. I asked her if she had ever seen a war movie, watched Old Yeller, but she's immovable.

So if she's any indication of the soon to be surprised moviegoers out there (think Ned in Game of Thrones), screaming will occur in the theaters.

...they're already screaming on tumblr, and posting things like the set of GIFs in which we see a happy Aidan Turner (this is me reading the Hobbit), followed by a less happy Aidan Turner (this is me halfway through).. followed by random person wailing (this is me on chapter XVIII)... or sad music...

Yeah, this is going to go on for , um, what? Two years??? I think we need a big site to have a fan wake for them, post all the fanart and stuff that's been building up....

about Kili not acting pretty (unlike Legolas -- but I guess OB wasn't given much to do with the role anyway). Kili's got a goofy, naive energy, so I was totally surprised when I saw how intense AT could be with his vampire character.

I'm glad too that it's 3 films instead of 2. When I heard the news my first thought was "Awesome! More Middle-Earth!"

I have read the book so many times, but usually brush through the deaths at the end of The Battle of Five Armies because I know what's coming and want to get on with it. However I was on Instagram the other day and someone posted some fan art of Fili/Kili dead and I almost lost it sitting in class (maybe because it was a polisci class on genocide and I was already feeling icky). I think it would be best for all our sanities to start mourning the aidan/dean versions of Kili and Fili (and Thorin!) now to save us the embarassment of weeping in the theatres come 2014 (maybe this a more widespread phenomena, but I only cry when watching the PJ LotR trilogy and now AUJ.. not for anything else, but unexplicably everytime I see the movies even though I know what's coming). When someone posts a Fili/Kili wake site, I'll be on it.

In point of fact Fili's dialogue wasn't much less if you look at that chart someone did last week where they measured dialogue. Kili was listed only just above Fili and the difference was small. That belies the idea that the filmmakers are somehow short-changing the character because as I recall the difference was almost negligible. They were listed between two of the Stone Trolls, Kili had slightly less dialogue in the whole film as Tom the Troll and Fili slightly had more dialogue than William the Troll. Bofur and even Dwalin were significantly above them.

So I'm just not seeing this big unfair discrepancy between them. Maybe one just makes more of an impression than the other, it might be as simple as "stage presence".

I thought it was interesting as well when I saw the screen time stats, because in my impression, Fili got WAY less screen time than Kili.

However, it seems that Kili is given more to do. He is the first one to charge the trolls, he gets to 'emote' (like when Thorin scolds them, or during the stone giants scene). And Thorin keeps shouting "Kili!" the whole movie regardless of whether he was in danger or not

... would be a good thing as well. I'd like to see some more of him, both with Kili and on his own. But the relationship between the two brothers is interesting, and it would be lovely to see some more of it.

I hope that that will be the case. I love the LOTR EEs, and there was so much interesting material in there that fleshed out the characters. If they can do the same with the Hobbit EEs, I would be very happy.